The pull-in instability places substantial restrictions on the performance of electrostatically driven MEMS devices by limiting their range of travel. Our objective is to present a systematic method of carrying out optimal design of novel types of electrostatic beams that have enhanced travel ranges. In this paper, we implement a shape optimization methodology using simulated annealing to maxim...

A micro power generator for harvesting vibration energy by means of a piezoelectric laminated cantilever with inertial mass was designed, fabricated, and characterized. The device was micro machined from a silicon-on-insulator structure coated with a 2μm thick piezoelectric PZT thin film. Interdigitated electrodes (IDE) were applied to achieve higher voltages. A piezoelectric coupling constant ...

Micro-cantilevers are frequently used as scanning probes and sensors in micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). Usually micro-cantilever based sensors operate by detecting changes in cantilever vibration modes (e.g., bending or torsional vibration frequency) or surface stresses when a target analyte is adsorbed on the surface. The catalyst for chemical reactions (i.e., for a specific analyte) c...

Micro-cantilevers are now gaining popularity in biomolecular sensing. Monitoring and mass detection of biological species can be accurately determined using the microor nanoscale cantilevers. The targeted biological molecules are first immobilized onto the microcantilever which is later determined through static or dynamic techniques. Optical detection method is employed to determine the deflec...

Microcantilever-based sensors can be used to detect molecular absorption of, for example, hydrogen gas, which causes changes in the surface stress, leading to deflection of the cantilever. Such a deflection can be determined by means of optical beam deflection, capacitance-, or piezo-resistance based readout. We have recently proposed a compact integrated mechano-optical sensor using a novel an...

This paper presents a micro-fabricated flexible and curled PZT [Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3] cantilever using d33 piezoelectric mode for vibration based energy harvesting applications. The proposed cantilever based energy harvester consists of polyimide, PZT thin film, and inter-digitated IrOx electrodes. The flexible cantilever was formed using bulk-micromachining on a silicon wafer to integrate it wit...

The movement of a micro cantilever was detected via a self constructed portable data acquisition prototype system which integrates a linear array of 32 1D amorphous silicon position sensitive detectors (PSD). The system was mounted on a microscope using a metal structure platform and the movement of the 30 μm wide by 400 μm long cantilever was tracked by analyzing the signals acquired by the 32...

In this paper, the effect of the crack on dynamic behavior of cracked micro-beam in the presence of DC and AC loads are investigated. By applying the residual axial stress and fringing field stress, a nonlinear analytical model of cracked micro-beam is presented and crack is modeled by a massless rotational spring. The governing equation of the system is solved using Galerkin procedure and shoo...

the most promising method for micro scale energy scavenging is via vibration energy harvesting which converts mechanical energy to electrical energy by the effect of coupling between electric fields and mechanical variables. using piezoelectric cantilevers is the most common method for vibration energy harvesting. changing the shape of the cantilevers can lead to changing the generated output v...

In 1988, intrinsic localized mode (ILM) was theoretically discovered as a temporary periodic and spatially localized solution in a nonlinear coupled oscillator. This discovery triggered wide-spread investigations on energy localization phenomena in spatially discrete systems. In particular, observations of the ILM in micro-mechanical cantilever arrays enable us to expect that energy localizatio...